My daughter, Hannah, was looking for the perfect jewelry for her first formal. It was difficult to find coordinating colors, most things were too dear for our budget, and the designs were relatively limited. We decided we could do better ourselves. Using many of the tools handed down by my basement metallurgist mother, I created a pair of perfectly hued, and mystically weightless dangle earrings (Hanna) for my daughter's Cinderella story.

In 2006 I made it official with a website (JoeBobLeigh.com).

Early on I was introduced to Etsy, but didn't initially jump on board. After my day job introduced me to website design in a legitimate arena, I got reacquainted with, and very quickly learned to appreciate the grace, function, and beauty of their site, and jumped into Etsy with both feet, all my wire, and my enthusiasm that was growing by the hour.

Since then I have methodically nurtured, and added to my JoeBobLeigh shop. It is mirrored by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and also JoeBobLeigh.com. It's lovely when they work together so well, what digital joy!

I now also teach classes locally, and have found a great circle, and a small hug of like-minded creatives that feed my soul and make the creative process such a wonderfully curvy path, with blooms of success along the way.